facebook

CoolStuffInc.com

MTG Outlaws of Thunder Junction available now!
  
Account Meeple
Location IconLocations
Account MeepleLogin
0 Item
Advanced Search
   Sign In
Create Account
Main » Articles » Five Decks You Can’t Miss This Week

Five Decks You Can’t Miss This Week

Carlos Gutierrez
Posted on September 6, 2014
 Reddit

Khans of Tarkir spoiler season rolls on, but we've still got another three weeks to go before the set becomes legal. In the meantime, we've got five awesome decks that will whet your appetite for new and exciting strategies and interactions in your favorite formats. This week we'll start with Purphoros in Standard and Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas in all formats. Then we'll take a look at an even more aggressive build of Modern Affinity and explore an Artifact-based Jalira, Master Polymorphist Commander deck. No matter which is your format of choice, these are five decks you just can't miss.

Goblin Rabblemaster has already proven itself to be one of the real powerhouses to come out of Magic 2015 and has found homes in several standard decks and even started to make its way into eternal formats. The Rabble Red aggro deck featuring this incredible three-drop broke out at Pro Tour Magic 2015, but hasn't changed much since then. Brad Nelson thinks we can do better:

Rabble Red ? Magic 2015 Standard | Brad Nelson

The real change here is the addition of Young Pyromancer and Purphoros, but these changes make all the difference. With both Young Pyromancer and Goblin Rabblemaster, you have the tools to play an attrition game against decks packed with removal spells and sweepers. If you manage to stick a Purphoros, then every Phoenix, Goblin, or Elemental generates free damage and you can dump extra mana into pumping your team. This swings races around awfully quickly and gives you a fantastic way of closing out games that were previously out of reach.

Young Pyromancer really ties together all of the themes that this deck is playing on. Cheap burn spells to close out games or open up your attacks, cheap creatures to go wide and force through damage, and cards like Purphoros and Stoke the Flames that encourage you to put lots of tokens into play.

This deck seems incredible in this metagame, since you can easily come out ahead of removal spells with multiple one-drops and stay ahead of cheap blockers with your removal spells. Normally that would leave you soft to sweepers, but you have Young Pyromancer, Goblin Rabblemaster, and even Mutavault to recover from Supreme Verdict. This seems like a very powerful place to be for the last few weeks of this Standard format, and I think you'll be hard pressed to find a matchup that is overwhelmingly unfavorable.

Affinity is the most all-in aggressive deck there is in Modern, and has seen success in various iterations since the inception of the format at Pro Tour Philadelphia. At Grand Prix K?be, Yuusei Gotou took second with an interesting take on the archetype that may just be the next evolution:

Blast Affinity ? Modern | Yuusei Gotou, 2nd Grand Prix K?be

Who cares what your opponent is doing? You're just going to shove a bunch of artifacts at them and then throw them at their face. Who needs Arcbound Ravager and Steel Overseer? This isn't a deck that's interested in going wide with Signal Pest and sneaking through the last few hits with Modular counters. You want to start hitting your opponent for four and five starting on turn two. Turn one Tarmogoyf and Ensoul Artifact are very real possibilities, as are the more traditional Cranial Plating hits on turn two. Suddenly your opponent will find themselves very close to dead, and you'll be able to Shrapnel Blast and Galvanic Blast them right out of the game.

The thing that this deck really capitalizes on is that people have preconceived notions about what an affinity deck does. Depending on what they see, they can board in cards like Pyroclasm and Shatterstorm that just aren't as effective against you. Tarmogoyf and Ensoul Artifact just don't care as much as Steel Overseer and Arcbound Ravager, and you can always just plan to topdeck burn spells.

This deck has a slightly different plan for the game, and that makes all the difference. People who are used to Affinity being about on-board tricks will die to Shrapnel Blast. People who are used to artifacts being all you've got will lose to Tarmogoyf. I don't know if this has the same overall power as "traditional" Affinity lists, but it could certainly be a good place to be until people pick up on the differences.

Shrapnel Blast Affinity isn't the only exciting deck to come out of Grand Prix K?be. Shouta Yasooka did it again, putting up a Top 16 finish with Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. Tezzeret isn't a card that most people have had on the radar in Modern, except as a sideboard card in random Affinity decks. Shouta has a history of building awesome Tezzeret decks in formats where most have dismissed him as unplayable. This Grand Prix was no different, and Yasooka was able to put up a Top 16 finish with his favorite Planeswalker.

[Cardlist Title= UB Tezzeret ? Modern | Shouta Yasooka, Top 16 Grand Prix K?be]

This deck does a lot of very interesting things and occupies a strange place in the Modern metagame. The key here is that you can play a lot of random hateful artifacts because of Tezzeret. You can Impulse for the artifacts you need in matchups where they matter or turn them into 5/5's and smash your opponent to death. Sometimes you'll just draw cards that people can't beat in game one. Relic of Progenitus is a pretty unfair card against Tarmogoyf. Splinter Twin decks aren't necessarily equipped to beat Torpor Orb and Spellskite in game ones.

What do you do if the hateful artifacts plan isn't going to get the job done? You can still just play out like a more traditional Blue-Black control deck with discard and removal backed by powerful Planeswalkers. Don't underestimate the ability of Tezzeret to shift gears. When you can start pumping out 5/5's or threaten to drain eight or more life, your opponents go from 20 to dead very quickly.

The most exiting thing about this deck is the amount of space for customization. Sometimes you won't want maindeck Torpor Orb. Maybe you'd rather have Engineered Explosives or even Oblivion Stone. Perhaps Vedalken Shackles is a thing? There are nearly infinite options, for hateful artifacts in Modern; choosing the right suite to play on a given weekend will always play a huge role in this deck's success.

Tezzeret isn't only good in Modern. The Esper artificer is also more than capable of getting things done in Legacy. The secret is figuring out the best shell to fit him in. This week, TELEPUNDOMAIN put up a good finish in a Daily Event with an interesting take on Grixis Tezzeret that eschews Grindstone combos for more traditional, do-nothing control win conditions. Let's take a look at what Tezzeret can do in a true control deck:

[Cardlist title= Grixis Tezzeret ? Legacy | TELEPUNDOMIAN, 3-1 Legacy Daily Event]

This deck gets to do a lot of really interesting things. First you've got the typical powerful starts. Ancient Tomb or Mox Diamond into Chalice of the Void on one. Alternatively, turn one Dimir Signet into turn two Tezzeret or Jace. From there you can use Tezzeret to set up the Thopter Foundry combo or any number of hate artifacts like Ensnaring Bridge to lock the game up while you go off with your Planeswalkers.

But that's not all. TELEPUNDOMIAN has made space for two more engines that make all the difference. Punishing Fire plus Grove of the Burnwillows helps you shut down Delver of Secrets and Stoneforge Mystic decks all while powering up one of the most exciting cards in your deck: Dack Fayden. Extra cards to discard makes Deck's Careful Study ability. Stealing Batterskull, Umezawa's Jitte, and even opposing Shardless Agents seems pretty good too. Dack is even pretty good at breaking up Counterbalance plus Sensei's Divining Top for a turn, since three-drops are in short supply and you can threaten to steal the Top to get it off the table.

This deck seems really interesting. There are a lot of poweful things going on, and it has a lot of unique tools. Every few months a deck like this breaks out for a week or two before receding back into irrelevance, but Dack Fayden and the rest of TELEPUNDOMIAN's red splash may just be what this deck needs to stay on top of the metagame for now. There's only one way to find out.

Say what you will, I think that cascade is one of the most fun mechanics in all of Magic. Card advantage and free spells are two things that players love, but that's not why I like the mechanics. There's nothing better than spinning the wheel and seeing what happens. You could cascade into anything! Sure, you build your deck to maximize consistency in your cascades, but it's still exciting to start flipping cards to see what happens. This week we're stepping into a world where you Commander lets you play the cascade lottery. No, not Maelstrom Wanderer. This is ShinkenGold's take on Jalira, Master Polymorphist:

[Cardlist title= The Story of a Myr - Commander | ShinkenGold]

This deck starts with cards that make creatures. Cards Guardian Idol and Springjack Pasture are prety solid, but we've got a few picks like Summoner's Bane that can do double duty as interaction and token generation. Once we've got tokens we can spin the wheel. Jalira lets you cast Polymorph every turn and cascade a creature into play. Most of the time, I'd say that this is a boring effect. After all, we all know that there are tons of creatures that can end the game for one or more players on the spot. But Jalira doesn't let that happen. Not only do the creatures have to be non-Legendary, they also have to be Blue!

Sure, you could go for Blightsteel Colossus as your only creature and find some way to Haste it up and start killing people. ShinkenGold doesn't, and that's why this deck is awesome. Instead, we head into a world of Sphinxes and go on a Quest for Ula's Temple. The key theme here is that many of ShinkenGold's creatures generate additional tokens, making sure that you can activate Jalira every turn and build an overwhelming board presence, backed by powerful Blue spells like Cyclonic Rift and [card]Rite of Replication[/car]. Using Blue tricks to cheat in enormous Sphinxes and Serpents is all kinds of fun, and ShinkenGold's take on Jalira is an awesome example of that.

Order Khans of Tarkir boxes, packs, and singles at CoolStuffInc.com today!

TAGS articles, standard, current events, deck lists, legacy, decks, commander, modern, carlos gutierrez, 5 decks

Recent Articles

View Archive
Sell your cards and minis 25% credit bonus